Do you ever use a turkey baster for detrius?

Every week or two I take out the turkey baster and blow into all the crevices, behind coral etc and there is always a ton of detrius (I'm guessing cause not sure what detrius is) or something that comes out. no matter how many times I do it it seems like there is stuff that even comes out of the rocks. What is it? We just noticed that it looks like we have some flat worms and what look like tiny nudi branches that we keep sucking out. Are the two related? They don;t look like they are hurting anything and the mini nudi's are only on the polyps.

 

Ouch, I wouldn't do that. Thats basically your biological brain for your salt water ecosystem. Many micro organisums benifit from that, dont blow it out of rocks or suck it out. Plus also keep the worms and other living stuff in there as well. Also a note, most fish will eat copepods and other pods that live in the rocks if you are sucking the detrius out of it you are taking their food away, not to mention maybe their eggs. IMO(in my opinion) DONT DO IT. You can take and use the turkey baster however ot feed your fish and direct feed corals and inverts

 

Yes, I use a turkey baster. I blow down the tops of my rocks occasionally when I see a build up. It helps keep the detritus in suspension , so that it goes through my mechanical filtration or the skimmer. Enjoy

Jim

 

I do ocassionally but I run a diatom filter on the tank when I do otherwise the stuff just settles back onto the rock/sand. What concerns me about your message, however, is the mention of nudibranchs in your polyps. What do the nudibranchs look like and and what kind of polyps are they settling on?

 

Yes, and I have used a hand held small power head. I'll just blow the detritus into suspension and let the filter do the rest.

For my 300 I've rigged a hose to one of the returns for more power. I'll typically hit the tank just before a water change.

 

I always do this during a water change. Yes there is alot in the rocks you want to keep but if detritus builds in them then you end up with high nitrates.

 

I use a modified MJ1200 to blow my rocks off about every month before a water change just to keep stuff from building up. Never seemd to hurt anything in my tank!:-/

 

I use a 700 gph power head to blow off the corals in the grow out systems and I do this several times aday then I also take a tooth brust and hit every plug and coral on Mondays Wed's and Fridays every week. I am getting faster base connections to the plug then ever before they say at the shop. what used to take them 2 months I get in a month.. from gluing to out the door on average of 6 weeks from cutting.. Some are just slow

 

yes i use for detrius removal off my rocks , also for target feeding